Page 82 of The Key to My Heart

I’m crying now, my face totally slick, rainwater and tears streaking my cheeks. I wipe my eyes on the sleeve of my coat, but it’s already soaked, like a heavy sponge.

‘You should’ve spoken to me,’ I say wobbly.

‘I know.’

‘You should have justsaidsomething.But, what, instead of just talking to me you –printed out music?’

Joe swallows. ‘It was just meant to be once. One song. I printed it out here, I didn’t even know if you’d play it. But then you did, and so I printed another and … Nat, if I could go back, if I could speak to you instead, I would. But it just went further and further and then … I heard you one day, in the café, talking to Shauna about it. You mentioned Russ, your husband, and then so did she. She was chatting away to the lad behind the counter after, at how you both hoped it was him leaving it. And I felt like a fuckin’ monster, Natalie. How cruel I would be, to admit it was me – just me. Nobody.’

‘But how could you not tell me? Even if you didn’tthen.We’re friends, Joe, you could have so easily—’

‘I tried,’ says Joe. ‘Which I know sounds so pathetic now, in the cold light of day, but I did. And I just couldn’t – and then that music was left after we went to the canal and … fuck, I didn’t know what to do. I thought – okay, how do I tell her that it was me, but it isn’t now? It sounded mad. Like lies. Like it does now. I mean – I sound off my head.’

A car drives by, the tyres sloshing through the giant pond of the puddle that’s gathered in the kerb. I feel like the ground is shaky beneath my feet. None of it. None of it makes sense. And like a montage, everything we’ve ever done together, cycles through my brain. The canal. The food festival. Record shopping. That kiss.

‘Were you ever my friend?’

‘What?’ Joe steps towards me, puts a hand to my shoulder. Rain pours from broken guttering behind us, water slapping the ground in great sheets. ‘Natalie …’

‘Were you?’ I say. ‘Or were you just trying to fix me? Atone, or something? The poor little widow who played songs to sick people, let’s help her, get her back to her music, do all the things she used to do with her poor husband, to make her feel better about herself, to makeJoefeel better about Joe.’

Joe looks as though he’s been slapped. The colour drains from his cheeks. ‘Natalie, of course you were my friend – youaremy friend.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ I reply. ‘You’ve kept so much from me. And Itoldyou. I told you everything. I told you I felt like the world was trying to fix me and all along, there you were, doing exactly that.’

‘I wasn’t –’

‘I’m leaving, Joe.’

‘Natalie, I wanted to say thank you,’ says Joe, tears in his eyes. He stares at me, his hand holding my arm, pleadingly. ‘Misguided, perhaps, but … that’s why I helped you. Because you helped me. You said the music didn’t work. But it did for me.’

I stare at him, as rain water fills my shoes. I am soaked to the bone. Every inch of my skin, of my clothes, of my hair …

‘The kiss was a mistake,’ I say. ‘And us being friends was a mistake. This whole thing – it’s so messed up …’

And I leave him, looking wounded, like I’ve just punched him right in the gut, in the rain. I walk away from Joe.

‘I’m so sorry, Natalie,’ he calls after me. But I don’t turn back, and at the station, for the first time, in almost a year, I walk straight past the piano and go home.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Tom(Just):I dunno about you, Foxes, but I’m psyched for Lucy’s birthday tonight.

Me:Ugh. Do not go there, I don’t want to go.

Tom(Just):Yes you do. I’ll be there. And you better listen to Mother Shauna when she says her Tommy Button is an absolute bloody dream on a date.

Me:It’s a date, is it?

Tom(Just):Well, a stand-in date. But let me tell you, real or stand-in, I’m a fucking delight on both.

I don’t know how the hell I’ve managed this. It’s a miracle. A modern-day miracle. To be here, at Lucy’s thirtieth dinner at Dishoom, looking like a real, fine and normal person. It’s been three days since Joe confessed to me and I have felt completely upside down ever since. I’m hardly eating, hardly drinking, hardly sleeping. I was so close to cancelling tonight, that I even wrote out an ‘I can’t make it’ text I didn’t end up sending. Because how can I sit with Tom, and not tell him about his dad? How can I confide in him about Joe, like I do about everything, when I’m lying to him, keeping things from him, just like Joe did to me?

But then Tom texted, excited about the evening, and I deleted my draft cancellation and texted him as normal. I showered. I forced a drink down my throat. And I slathered on so much make-up, I’m sure I’m probably quite flammable. And I decided, I’ll tell him tomorrow. Tomorrow he’s at home all day, he said so himself, and tomorrow I’ll call him and tell him everything. I’ll invite him over after, for wine, and I’ll even cook sausages, and we will talk. Properly talk. But tonight – tonight, I can pretend. Tonight I can pretend my emotions aren’t waging a war inside of me, turning my insides to hot acid. Tonight I can pretend I’m free and easy and without any bombshells to drop or to share, with my handsome date Tom. Who, true to his word, absolutelyisa delight. We’ve only been seated for about twenty minutes at the restaurant table amongst so many of Lucy’s friends and family, and already, he’s had many of them in stitches with laughter. He’s as charming and as funny, as ever. It’s like I said, the world deserves Tom. The man even made Roxanne smile.

‘Oh, it’s Tom from the bar!’ she’d shrieked when we arrived. She looks different today. Thinner, tired. Like someone with the heavy weight of the world on her shoulders.

‘That’s me,’ he’d announced. ‘From arse to hero.’

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